The invention relates to a device for operating a magnetoelectric vehicle, particularly a suspended magnetoelectric vehicle, movable along a track and including a synchronous linear motor, particularly a long stator motor having a long stator winding laid along the track and being subdivided into a plurality of winding sections consecutively connected one to another and an exciter mounted on the vehicle, and further including at least one section cable extending parallel to the track and having a plurality of consecutive tap points, a plurality of switching devices connected between the tap points and connection points of the stator winding sections, and at least two power sub-stations connected to respective ends of the section cable.
In conventional devices of this kind the longstator winding laid along the track is subdivided into a plurality of relatively short, for example 1 kilometer long stator winding sections which are immediately interconnected one after the other. The section cable which is relatively long, for example about 30 kilometers, is connected by one of the switching devices to the stator winding section which at any point in time is being run over by the vehicle (DE-PS 24 25 940). The section cable is connected to a power sub-station in which the requisite DC/AC converters and the like are installed. In order to avoid drop outs of thrusts acting on the suspended vehicle during its passage in the travelling direction over the switching point between the consecutive stator winding sections, a so-called "buck-jump" method is employed. Two section cables are provided and the consecutive stator winding sections are alternatingly connected with one or the other section cable and during the switch-over phase current is supplied to both participating winding sections. Of course, this method requires the use of two independent section cables and the corresponding power sub-stations. If a long stator winding is provided at either side of the vehicle, the same method in principle is employed whereby the stator winding sections at both sides are series connected and jointly switchable to the same section cable. In general, a plurality of consecutive arrangements of this kind must be arranged along the entire track.
To reduce voltage drops occurring across the section cables and to facilitate an emergency operation at a reduced power during a converter failure and the like, another known device of this kind (DE-OS 29 32 764) provides for each section cable two power sub-stations connected to the ends of the cable. Each power sub-station delivers one half of the current which is needed for the generation of a required thrust. In doing so, each of the two sub-stations is used for two consecutive section cables and by means of additional switching devices is switched over to that section cable whose range the vehicle has entered. This so-called double-feeding method can be combined with the above described buck-jump method.
Alternatively, it has been also known (Elektrotechnische Zeitschrift, Volume 108, 1987, Copy 9, pages 378 to 381), to combine the double feeding method with a so-called alternate stepping method. The latter method resides in the separate feeding of respective long stator sides of a double side wound long stator motor by means of two mutually independent power sub-stations, and further in the mutual displacement of the stator winding sections of the right and the left side of the long stator by at least one length of the vehicle. In this manner, in comparison with the buck-jump method, it is possible to reduce power requirements for the installed sub-stations assuming equal operating conditions.
A common feature of all above described known devices is the fact that they do not provide an optimum operation as regards power losses in the section cables, the number of stator winding sections to be laid in a track unit, the utilization of nominal power of respective power sub-stations and the like. It has been found as particularly disadvantageous that the nominal power of the power sub-stations can be utilized to full extent only in those stator winding sections which at the moment of being run over by the vehicle are most distant from the power sub-station.